Sony

Updated: 3 months ago

In Short

The Android-powered Xperia phone and tablet range is one of the modern Sony's main areas of focus

Japanese corporate giant Sony makes everything from cameras to TVs to games consoles to smartphones — not to mention its considerable music and movie portfolio. In the Android world, though, Sony is best known in the context of its Xperia phones and tablets, and mobile is one of the three pillars of the company's "One Sony" initiative, announced by CEO Kazuo Hirai in 2012. (The other two being gaming and digital imaging.) Sony Mobile, as it's now called, was formed out of Sony's buyout of the old Sony Ericsson, which was a joint venture between Sony and the Swedish company.

Sony's smartphone lineup is led by its Xperia Z series, with which it pursues an unusually aggressive upgrade cycle, shipping a new Z series model every six months. In recent years Sony has moved towards a singular design language across much of its mobile devices, dubbed "Omnibalance." Omnibalance phones are typically angular, squared-off slabs with curved or metallic edges, and often feature glass-backed chassis. While recent entrants like the Xperia Z2 have earned Sony praise for its build quality, they've also been criticized for being boxy and uncomfortable to hold.

An early pioneer in waterproof smartphone designs, many of Sony's high-end devices also boast water and dust resistance, which it has achieved by sealing most of its port sand connectors behind waterproof plastic doors. Recently Sony has started to extend water resistance to its mid-range offerings as well.

As a company with a strong history in digital imaging, Sony includes homegrown Exmor sensors and G lenses in its smartphone cameras, the most common being its 20.7-megapixel Exmor RS unit. This is packaged together with software that emulates the features of some standalone Sony cameras, such as Superior Auto for automatic scene detection, and Sweep Panorama for panoramic images. Sony also attempted to leverage its valuable PlayStation brand in the world of mobile gaming, however PlayStation Mobile was discontinued in mid-2014.

Sony is one of the major smartphone players in Europe and parts of Asia, however it's yet to crack the U.S. market in any meaningful way. It sells some devices unlocked through its U.S.-based online store, but so far its carrier-approved handsets have been few and far between. And while its mobile products continue to receive generally positive reviews, the company itself faces a tumultuous financial future.

23 June 2014 20By Chuong H NguyenU.S. customers looking for Sony's entry-level Xperia M2 are now in luck as the handset is now available for pre-order from Sony's web and physical stores. The handset is expected to ship Wednesday, June 25, with a price of $289.99 and can be pre-ordered in either black, purple, or white....

11 June 2014 16By Harish JonnalagaddaA day ahead of the kickoff ceremony of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Sony has unveiled an Xperia theme for the event. While the theme was leaked in its entirety last month, it is now officially available for download in the Play Store....

10 June 2014 11By Rich EdmondsSony has launched the Xperia Z2a in Taiwan. This device is very similar to the Xperia Z2 that recently launched globally, but in a slightly different plastic-backed chassis, running on Taiwanese 4G LTE networks....

04 June 2014 12By John CallahamA few months after launching the Smartwatch 2, Sony has now launched its latest wearable product, the SmartBand SWR10 in the U.S. and Canada The company revealed it can now be bought on the official Sony Store website as well as its U.S. retail store locations for $99.99...

03 June 2014 19By Alex DobieSony is the latest handset maker to field a mid-range product with a large, five-plus-inch screen size. Announced this morning, the Sony Xperia T3 packs a 5.3-inch display, and at 7mm thick Sony says it's the world's slimmest handset at this screen size...

15 May 2014 114By Alex DobieAs we approach the midway point of 2014, the march of smartphone progress is as unrelenting as it's ever been. The latest devices from the likes of Samsung and HTC have pushed specs, screen sizes and price tags to new heights, to the point where the year-old phones they've replaced seem quaint and dated. Yet one manufacturer has committed to an even more aggressive upgrade cycle. Sony Mobile may be an also-ran in the U.S., but it's big internationally, and it likes to refresh its premium smartphones every six months. So as tick follows tock, the Japanese manufacturer unveiled the Xperia Z2 at a press conference in Barcelona this February, replacing the Xperia Z1 a mere half-year after its emergence.
While such a rapid pace can be frustrating for consumers, who may find their shiny new handsets superseded in just a few months, this quick turnover of flagships has allowed Sony to iterate its way to better products. The jump from Xperia Z to Z1 saw the manufacturer finally nail a few important areas — camera, battery life and performance — while advancing its "omnibalance" design language. The Z1's slab-like design wasn't for everyone, but it was, and still remains, a fine phone.
The Xperia Z2 is yet another iterative update, and this time Sony is focusing on improved display and sound quality, while addressing the handful of build issues that affected the Z1. That's not as exciting as built-in fingerprint scanners, heart-rate sensors or Duo Cameras, but it demonstrates a focus on the core experience that competitors sometimes lack. And as we'll discuss in our review, it's a big part of what makes the Z2 not just another solid Sony phone, but a true rival to current flagships from HTC, Samsung and even Apple.
Read on to find out why.

15 May 2014By Alex DobieAfter stopping by Canada, the mid-range Sony Xperia M2 is hitting UK carriers. The phone launches on EE today, with prices starting at £19.99 on a 24-month, £18.99 per month 4G plan with 500MB of data. The EE Xperia M2 is available from today online, in-store and via telesales....

14 May 2014 49By Alex DobieAs Japanese tech giant Sonyrestructures its businesses, there are signs of more growing pains to come. The company revealed that it expects losses of ¥50 billion ($489 million) in the financial year ending March 2015, whereas analysts had predicted a net profit of ¥59 billion...

14 May 2014 4By Alex DobieConfirming earlier leaks, Sony has today unveiled the Xperia A2 for NTT Docomo in Japan, joining Sony's current flagship, the Xperia Z2 on the Japanese network. As rumored, the Xperia A2 is almost identical to the Xperia Z1 Compact, a phone which arrived in Japan last year as the Xperia Z1 f....

08 May 2014 1By Harish JonnalagaddaAfter shuttering its Reader Store in the US and Canada earlier this year, Sony has confirmed that it will be discontinuing the service in four other countries: UK, Germany, Austria and Australia...